When you visit
Before
On
arrival, please ring the doorbell and a member of staff will greet you at the
door.
You
will then be asked to check your details with reception and confirm your
appointment and take a seat in one of the socially distanced waiting areas.
We will always try to see you within half an hour of your appointment time, but
sometimes this is not possible if the clinic is running behind and you need to
be seen by a specific member of the clinical team.
During
During
your appointment, depending on what your needs are, you may be seen by a health
care support worker, a nurse or a doctor. You may be offered an examination and
microscopy tests which we perform on-site. If this is the case, we may ask you
to sit back in the waiting room until your results are ready. Any medication
prescribed and available in Clinic will be given to you before you leave, free
of charge. If we do not have the medication in Clinic, we will write a hospital
prescription for you to collect at the Lloyds pharmacy in the hospital which is
also free of charge.
After
Often
we will ask you for feedback in paper form or online survey. If you have time
please try and complete these as your feedback allows us to reflect on what we
are doing well and ways in which we can improve the service.
Your test results will be ready by the time of your follow up appointment if
necessary or they will be sent out to you by text.
What
do examinations involve?
Before
any intimate examination, we will always offer you a chaperone.
A
chaperone is a specially trained person who is asked to be present during an
intimate examination to support both the patient and the doctor or nurse and to
be a witness of the examination.
If you have a vagina
If
you have symptoms or pelvic pain when
you arrive at the clinic, we would offer an
intimate examination to provide us with valuable information to help make a diagnosis.
This
involves a speculum examination; this is very similar to having a smear if you
have had one before. It shouldn’t be painful but can be a little uncomfortable
and only takes a few moments. We do this to have a look at the cervix and the
walls of the vagina and use a soft cotton bud to take samples to have a closer
look under the microscope.
If you have a penis
If
you have symptoms then it is of benefit for us to offer you an examination. This will involve; examining
the testicles to check for any lumps or painful areas, looking behind the
foreskin and using a very small cotton bud to take a sample from the tip of the
penis which takes only a second. There is no scraping, it doesn’t go all the
way down and there definitely are no hoops or umbrellas.
Confidentiality
All
of your information and records are highly confidential, your notes and
personal details remain in our clinic and are not revealed to anyone outside
except in very rare circumstances – in these cases we’ll ask your permissions
beforehand. To enhance confidentiality, our department has a separate computer
system which cannot be accessed by any other department within the hospital.
Your records cannot be seen by your GP either. See our confidentiality webpage
for more information.
